|
Order this writing in the collection book Survive & Thrive discounted!!! (original list price was $14.22) now available for only 995 |
|
| |
Randy Urbanski pulls her red Corvette between the white lines of the spot reserved for her husband Bob’s BMW in the Island Watch resident parking lot. Their townhouse has a single ground-level garage where she usually keeps her car, but she will be going out again soon, and would rather leave it in the breezy outdoor shade than inside the stuffy garage. An association by-law prohibits open garage doors unless the owner is engaged in some kind of work within.
It was one of those rules that Island Watch owners feel are needed to “maintain standards,” as they put it, so the place will never look shabby. When Randy herself first rented a one-bedroom unit here three years ago, she felt such rules were silly and often disregarded them. But since Bob bought the two-bedroom they now live in, she feels more like an owner. Though it’s in his name because the closing was six months before his divorce became final and they could be married, that does not prevent her from feeling the possessiveness and acquisitiveness common to so many members of the association — “pride of ownership.”
Randy steps out of the car and straightens her sleeveless lime-green dress, then walks around to the passenger side to retrieve the bag which contains her afternoon’s purchase — a matching set of outfits for herself and her crew to wear in the Waterwitch Yacht Club’s first annua1 women’s race this coming Saturday. She looks with pride out to the end of the pier at the boat she will command, Randy’s Price, a sleek Beneteau 32 she and Bob have been sailing all season. The J/30 Bob owned when they first met was faster but it lacked the comforts Randy insisted upon. After all, they often sailed to Long Island Sound or the Chesapeake for a class race, and she wanted more than a privacy curtain between her and the college kids who usually crewed for them. The new boat provided a separate aft cabin for the crew, with their own portable head so they would not have to dirty Randy’s, as well as a microwave oven in the galley where she could do some decent cooking.
Randy enters her house and immediately goes to her bedroom where she opens the bag and tries to imagine how she and the crew will look as they cross the finish line. She removes her belt and unbuttons her dress and lifts it over her head. Beneath she wears a white silk camisole and bikini panties. She pulls the new sleeveless white double-knit cotton polo shirt on and spreads it smooth. “Randy and Skipper” are embroidered in half-inch red letters on the right and left breast pockets. She steps in front of, or rather within, her three-panel full-length mirror to inspect herself and lifts her arms straight up and sees that her camisole shows through the armholes when she stretches. She removes the shirt again and also peels off the camisole, and studies her small, lemon-shaped breasts. Then she shrugs and pulls the shirt back on. She jumps a few times and watches her breasts float up and down. Not too obscene, she thinks. Her dark nipples are not noticeable through the double layer, so the pockets were a good idea. Some of the men in the club wouldn’t keep their eyes off her if she were too flagrant, and their wives would be jealous.
She steps into her red cotton shorts and ties them at the waist. They are cut extra wide and vented high up the sides to permit stretching and freedom of motion. She reaches into the two front scooped pockets and decides they are perfect for carrying small tools and tape and bits of cord and all the odds and ends a sailor wants to have at hand. She twirls around a few times to make certain the boatís name in three-inch letters on the back of her shirt shows to advantage. Finally, she puts on the hooded red windbreaker which carries the same lettering in white. A perfect combination!
Randy checks the names on the three other shirts. The daughter of a friend from the club, a college student named Debby Foley who has been racing since childhood, is the navigator. Randy made it clear that Debby will double as tactician because of her experience. She has exhibited great wind-sense, better even than Bob’s, often choosing a course a few degrees farther off the wind than other boats to give them a slight edge in speed. She is also a master at strategic maneuvers designed to take the wind out of someone else’s sails. Carolyn Martin, 16-year-old daughter of a neighbor, and Bertha Bunting, wife of the club’s Vice Commodore, make up the foresail crew. Carolyn must be part monkey the way she grips the toerail and deck with her feet and pulls herself through the lifelines and rigging. With her long legs and arms she can scamper up to the pulpit to tie the spinnaker turtle, snap on the halyard, sheet, and guy, hoist and level the spinnaker pole, and be back into the cockpit in about ten seconds. Even Bertha knows enough to follow Carolyn’s lead and play the guy in or out at her command.
Randy will show the “uniforms” to the girls tomorrow after their final practice, her gift to the crew for working so hard. They’ve been going out three times a week for four weeks since the race was approved by the committee, and Randy thinks they could use a new incentive. To have had stylish clothes when she was a child might have given Randy the incentive to be a better person. Her family could make ends meet on her father’s salary, but Mrs. Price did work at home for a tailor. Using the tailor’s sewing machine, she hemmed trousers and let out waistbands, though she had to spend a half hour on the bus each way bringing the clothes back and forth to the shop. The extra income enabled the Prices to afford a few luxuries, like a rented bungalow at the Jersey shore for a week every July and trousers and suits for Randy’s father and three brothers at cost. Later she used the sewing machine to make dresses for herself and Randy but they were all dowdy.
On Sundays Randy and her mother both looked like all the middle-aged frumps at the Presbyterian Church. When she turned fourteen, Randy refused to go to church anymore and would wear only her brothers’ old sweatshirts and jeans. Randy knows that she and Carolyn, with their long slender legs and slim hips, will look great in the racing outfits, and even Debby, though a bit hefty, is athletic enough to carry her weight decently. But Bertha, though only
Even without that edge, Randy feels they will do well. Of the eight boats entered, Randy’s Price has the best record, though the highest handicap. Of course, the victories all came with Bob as skipper, but she has been sailing with him for three years now and feels confident.
Randy is still admiring herself in the mirror when her bell rings. “Hi, it’s me,” Judy Driscoll calls through the screen door. “Am I too early?” Judy used to work as an interior decorator and still helps her husband Dave, who owns a floor covering business. After a good deal of nagging, she finally got Dave to redo their own floors. At the cocktail party the Driscolls gave in June, Randy was impressed with the quality of his work, though she didn’t care for his off-color jokes. She especially liked the glossy bleached oak floor in the living room and the red quarry tiles in the kitchen. When Dave promised a special rate for neighbors, Bob’s ears perked up because Randy had recently decided to refurbish. She wants a new kitchen even more luxurious than the one the Greenwoods have just installed, and a double whirlpool bath like Darlene Kaye’s. Since the party, Judy has pitched right in and practically assumed full responsibility for the project. She’s thrilled to be using her creative talents again, and Randy knows enough to take advantage of free professional advice.
“No, come on up, I want you to see something before we go.”
“What an adorable outfit, Randy,” Judy says as she enters the bedroom. “It looks perfect on you.”
“It would have looked great on you, too,” Randy says, flashing her most radiant smile and pointing to the other three on the bed. At thirty-six, Judy is still thin enough to look good in fashionable sportswear. With precisely that thought in mind, as well as the notion of rewarding her for her services, Randy had offered Judy a position in her crew. Unfortunately, Judy insisted she hates the water even though Dave owns a big fishing boat. That was when Randy thought of Bertha Bunting.
“Well, maybe, but I’m no sailor so I’d just get in the way. You’ll do better without me.”
On their short drive to Dave’s little office-warehouse downtown to examine carpet samples, Randy considers how awkward her position is. She doesn’t like Dave and wouldn’t be dealing with him if it weren’t for her friendship with
Judy senses her distress and tries to explain: “You know, Dave has an architect working on plans for a classy new showroom up on the highway, with everything on display. He’s even gonna hire a special sales staff. He’s really outgrown this old place.”
Randy is not, however, reassured, but lately, Bob’s been complaining so about the way she spends money that she can’t very well pay full price somewhere else. Nor can she discuss her feelings about Dave with him. Bob would naturally understand her sensitivity to Dave’s leers and smirks when she walks around the pool area in her bikini, but he would not be able to comprehend what bothers her most: the way Dave tends to touch all the Island Watch women when he talks to them—except her. He can’t conduct a conversation with one of them without grabbing a shoulder or squeezing a leg.
She has seen him stretch an arm around Ellen Austen for a friendly hug and then casually brush his hand across her big boobs. Once he even patted Carolyn’s mother on the ass. But since Bob moved in with Randy three years ago, Dave has treated her like a statue. Strangely, he seems the type of boorish lecher who assumes a woman of forty-three married to a man thirty years older would need a lover on the side. Instead, however, his weird male ego seems to have catalogued her as forbidding, or perhaps contaminated, used up, unappealing. She would put him in his place if he made a pass, but he hasn’t.
“I think this light beige would go perfect in the master bedroom,” Judy says, holding a sample in the single shaft of sunlight that sneaks through the rear window, “and perhaps this gray in the guest room.”
The arrangement they have wasn’t negotiated or discussed, rather it evolved over time. She will quietly ask, “Come to my room tonight?” sometime during the late evening while they read or watch television, and he will undress in his own room and enter hers wearing only his cashmere robe. If she does not extend an invitation, he will just say a pleasant “Good night, dear” when he retires. And often in the morning, while he is showering after his daily run, she will bring coffee to his room and slip out of her robe and into his bed where he greets her with surprised and ecstatic delight. Randy knows that Bob has no cause for complaint. There are no ten-day and two-week periods of abstinence which Marie, his first wife, had required to avoid conception. Instead, they have sex on demand—when Randy demands.
“That would be the best way,” I think, Judy agrees. “Have you settled on drapes and bedspreads yet? I think that will help you decide between the beige and the gray.”
“I just can’t make up my mind. Today I think I like the gray, but yesterday I decided the beige was warmer. I hate to be so indecisive.”
Judy smiles. “Honey, you’ve made more decisions in a month than most women make in a year. You’ve got nearly everything picked out, and the things left are down to two or three choices!”
Dave calls over from where he’s talking to the men. “Hey, Judy, did you show Randy those new acrylics from the Georgia mill? They’re supposed to resist dirt better.î
Dave dismisses the men. ìWhat are you talking about? I brought them home last night. They’re in the back room.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” Judy gives him a look of exasperation which, judging by the way her cheeks seem to fold into separate upper and lower sections, must be common.
Dave says without any sincerity, “Sorry, sweetheart, I thought I did.”
“Honestly, Dave, I can’t read your mind.”
“Well, the thing is,” he says, “I need them back today for another customer. You were supposed to check them out in Randy’s place and bring them back here with you.”
Judy doesn’t seem to know who is at fault. “Suppose we look at them when we get back home and then I’ll drop them off here later. Is that okay?”
Dave tightens his lips and thinks. “You know, now that I think about it, you’re right. I must have taken them out of the car last night and set them someplace in the garage. I guess I forgot to bring them in.”
“Oh, Dave, we have to see them side by side with these”—she holds up the samples they have been examining—”so we can make the right choice.î
“Tell you what!” Dave says. “I might have put them in any of a dozen places, and the garage is a mess. Suppose I run Randy back to the house and find them. We’ll take those two you’ve got with us so she can spread them all out on the floor and decide.’’
“I’m expecting some calls, so you stay here and mind the store, okay, sweetheart?”
Randy doesn’t want to go anywhere with Dave but, under the circumstances, his suggestion makes sense. Judy couldn’t find them in that garage of theirs, which Randy has seen and assumes was the reason for the rule about keeping doors closed, and she does want to see the real texture and color of the samples up against everything else. Anyway, it will only take a few minutes. “I guess it’s okay,’’ she says, “if Dave doesn’t mind.”
Dave says, “No problem, sweetheart, I’ll be right with you.” He strips off his T-shirt, goes to the sink, and begins to wash his arms and chest.
“Dave!” Judy says.
ìWhat, I should be all filthy when I drive the lady around? That’s bad for business.” He pulls a clean shirt from a desk drawer and puts it on. “I go through three or four of these a day,” he says.
“I know,” says Judy. “I do your damned laundry.”
# # #
Dave points out that Randy might get her pretty dress dirty in his truck, so they take her Corvette. “Great car,” he says, “Your old man must be raking it in, huh? Not that it’s any of my business, but I know what these babies cost.”
“It was Bob’s wedding present to me,” Randy answers. She knew it was a terrible extravagance, but she wanted it anyway. She had no intention of living as her parents had. Her mother had always longed to take drives in the country on Sunday afternoons. Like any other working class American family they could have bought a car on time, but Mr. Price wouldn’t hear of it. His worst fear was to die in debt. At the time of Randy’s birth a “stripped” Ford or Chevy or Plymouth sold for less than $2000, so the Prices decided to save.
For three years they avoided all luxuries, putting $13 every week into a savings account at 2 1/2% interest. “Makes more sense than paying interest to the bank,” Mr. Price assured his wife, though the latter secretly thought that having the use of the car for those three years was worth paying the bank something for. When Randy turned three, the Prices decided it was time to see what their account balance of $2,105.46 would buy. Unfortunately, the price of cars had risen. The 1955 Ford sedan they liked cost $2300 with a radio and heater. So they had to save four more months and couldn’t get the car until May.
“You know something, sweetheart?” Dave asks, “I think women make better drivers than men. And this gives me a chance to enjoy the scenery.” He doesn’t take his eyes off her all the way home. Much to her surprise, she finds his behavior amusing and cannot suppress a smile when he catches her peering over at him. “Whatís so funny?î he asks.
“You, the way you act like you’re fifteen.î
“Sweetheart, I call everybody sweetheart—my customers, my work crews, even my mother.”
Randy alters her tone to indicate that she does not like to be contradicted. “Well, please don’t call me that. I’m Randy. Or Miranda, if you insist on being formal.î Now she knows she is making fun of him. Randy’s mother had always been addressed by her husband and children as Mother. Mr. Price was Father. Her brothers were never Ray or Mike or Tom; their given names sufficed for both address and reference, and in the Price family, there was much more of the latter. “Raymond must study harder.” “Have Thomas take out the garbage.’’ ìMichael cannot get any dessert tonight.” Since no diminutives or nicknames of any kind were ever used, Miranda was in high school before she realized the effect of informality. When she made her simple self-introduction—ìHi, I’m Randy”—the boys, especially those who read English novels, paid attention.
“Okay, Randy-baby.”
Back at Island Watch, Randy goes straight into her house with the pieces of carpet from the store while Dave searches his garage for the Georgia samples.
“Found them,” he announces as he comes in without knocking and walks right upstairs to her bedroom. “Let’s see how they compare.”
ìSpread them on the floor next to the others,” Randy says.
“No, I’ll tell you what,î Dave answers, “you go in the other room while I mix them up. Then you can pick whichever you like best without being swayed by the price. The new stuff’ll cost you sixteen cents a yard more, but that is wholesale. You shouldnít let it be a factor. I mean, buy what your gut tells you is right, not what your checkbook says.î
“Good idea.” Randy steps into Bobís room. She wonders if Dave is faithful to Judy. Probably not, she thinks. Judy shows good instincts for color and fabric but not for men; she wouldn’t know how to keep a guy like Dave under control.
“Okay, you can come back now,” Dave calls.
Randy returns and studies the four samples which Dave has placed at the foot of the bed so that the spread just touches them. “Well, I guess I prefer the grays over the beiges, but I can’t tell these two apart. The colors seem exactly the same.”
“Then my suggestion is to go for the new stuff. It’ll stay cleaner.î
“That makes sense, but let’s see if Judy agrees, okay?”
On the drive back to his shop, Dave says, “So I hear you’re quite a sailor. The big race is Saturday, right?”
ìYes it is, but how did you know?” Randy can’t imagine that Judy had discussed it with Dave. She had asked her a month ago and Judy immediately turned her down.
ìHow can I be bored watching women all day? There’s nothing I’d rather do.” With his left arm he touches Randy’s right knee and squeezes. “Besides, if I show some interest in what you do, maybe you’ll return the favor and come out in my boat some day. You and Bob, I mean.”
“I don’t think Bob cares much for fishing.”
“Then maybe just you and Judy and me.”
“Judy told me she doesn’t enjoy the water at all.î
“Then I guess it’ll just be you and me, sweetheart. Process of elimination. Destiny.” He squeezes her knee again and this time lets his hand rest on her thigh. Strangely, Randy does not seem to mind. It’s been a long time since a man has drooled so obviously over her. Growing up with three brothers and all their friends, she had always been more comfortable with males than females. By the time she was in high school, Raymond had been killed in Vietnam and Michael and Thomas were destroying themselves with heroin. “Make love, not war,” made sense to Randy.
In college she learned men were as foolish about sex as they were selfish. Her reputation as an “easy piece” kept her phone busy and ensured an escort for every demonstration, football game, or play she chose to attend and got her access to the computer lab on demand. But each man paid her price without compliant—a blouse or scarf she would point out in a shop window, an expensive dinner, a ride home for the weekend. Later she learned to exact services of greater value, such as a term paper, a favorable review of an acting performance, an A from an assistant professor whose literature course she never attended.
She thought a clever woman could have a great future in systems analysis, and she progressed through five jobs in eighteen years by trading exciting sex for useful knowledge. Since settling down with Bob, though, she has been too busy with the house and her club activities to work much.
When Randy met Bob on a consulting assignment, both sets of skills—computer applications and sex—were finely honed. Despite their age difference, they felt an immediate mutual attraction. She saw instantly that he was bored with his life and a visit to his home showed her why. For forty-three years he had been married to a woman whose father’s insurance business he first went to work in after college and eventually inherited.
Bob never had to make much effort; he was a war hero and the son Jack Donnelly always wanted; dutiful wife, riverfront mansion, and abundant lifestyle all came as part of the package.
Randy offered a set of proposals to modernize the agency’s operations. When his wife and mother-in-law rejected them, Bob sided with Randy and, for the first time in his adult life, did something on his own. Bob in one way had reminded Randy of her own father, a man who inherited a prosperous neighborhood butcher shop from his father, but after the war business began falling off to the chain markets linking their way through the big cities of the northeast—Atlantic and Pacific Tea, American Stores, White Rose. By the time of Randy’s birth he was meat manager in an ASCO a half hour bus ride away from the Prices’ rented rowhouse, the kind that all look so alike it’s a wonder Philadelphia children could ever find the right one after school.
Bob, however, started his own insurance agency, completely computerized following Randy’s proposals, and in three years has made it the most cost-effective agency in Lenape County. Randy feels no guilt about taking Bob from Marie; on the contrary, she credits herself with freeing him from a stultifying life and enabling him to create a new one.
Without taking her eyes off the road, Randy gives Dave’s hand a firm slap and he removes it from her thigh. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I ever hooked a great big fish,” she says.
# # #
On Friday night during the eleven o’clock news, Bob pours them each a large martini. “To get you to relax,” he says, though she knows he sometimes uses alcohol to soften her judgment and improve his chances of getting into her bed. She lets his little ruse work because she wants to relax and get to sleep and not allow strategies and tactics to race through her mind all night. Unfortunately, however, Bob himself is softened by the alcohol, and when he quietly returns to his room she feels wide awake and stimulated. The humid August air is completely still. She knows a second drink will make her headachy and sluggish in the morning, and she wants to be in peak condition for the race. Instead, she lies in bed and finishes a novel she started the previous night.
Around two o’clock, still unable to sleep, she turns off the reading light and steps out on the balcony in the hope that the damp night air will chill her naked body and make her want to crawl back under the sheet for warmth. A sliver of a moon hangs over the bay like a sickle, but the night is otherwise dark. She looks out the pier to where the boats float in their slips and senses something is not right—a flash of 1lght that seems unnatural. She decides to investigate.
ìThat wasn’t very nice,” Randy says.
“Don’t knock it till you tried it,” Dave answers, standing up. He is wearing only a bathing suit. “Come on up here. I want you to see something.”
Randy looks back at her balcony and is surprised at how visible it is from the pier. A tingle of tension passes through her at the thought of being watched by Dave as she stood there a few minutes ago. She wants to know if he saw her but decides to act as though nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. She steps on board and climbs the ladder to the bridge. He has sat down again on the padded bench wide enough for three and waves her down next to him. “I guess I thought I was the only person in the world who couldnít sleep tonight,î she says. ìSomething didnít look right to me on the boat and I just came out to check.î
ìWhat did you see?î
ìIím not sure, really. It looked like a flash of light.î Dave holds up a cigarette. ìMaybe you saw me light this.î
ìThat was probably it.î
ìNervous about the race?î Dave asks.
ìI suppose so.î
ìDonít bother. Tomorrowís gonna be foggy and there wonít be no wind. Theyíll have to cancel.î
ìHave you heard a weather report?î Randy asks, more alarmed than curious. This was the only date open for the womenís race, and if they cancel sheíll have to wait until next year.
ìI can tell by the clouds and the smell of the air. Macho fishermen know as much about these things as gentlemen sailors and their ladies do.î
Daveís tone is not scornful and Randy recalls how she teased him driving back to his shop the other day. ìDo you mind if I tune in the weather channel?î
ìDonít you trust me?î
ìSure, Dave, I just want to see if NOAA is as smart as you are.î Randy switches the VHF on and hears the night-shift man crackle out the marine forecast:
Dense fog later this morning with very high humidity. Visibility zero to one half mile. Winds, variable, at three knots or less. Seas calm. Possible showers and thunderstorms late afternoon.
“Doesn’t sound too good.” Dave reaches to shut off the radio, then lets his hand drop onto Randy’s thigh. There is something electric about his touch, as though his wiry body were indeed connected to a source of power.
“How do you feel?î
“Disappointed, I guess. I was looking forward to this race. I think I wanted to prove to Bob that I’m a damned good sailor. He hasn’t said it in so many words, but I get the feeling he doesnít think I’m ready.î
“l tried reading before but that didn’t seem to help.”
“What?” Randy turns to face him, pushing his hand off her thigh.
Dave points to her house. “I could see you reading in bed.”
Randy tries to act indignant. “Do you often spy on your neighbors?”
“I couldn’t sleep, either, so I came out here for a smoke and a drink.” Dave lifts up a bottle of Cutty Sark and offers it to her. “Care for some?”
“No, thanks.
“Anyway, I was sitting here enjoying the night by myself when I see a light go on and this gorgeous piece of ass is stretched out on her bed holding a book. What a waste, I said to myself. I’d have been happy to come up and entertain you, but then I figured your old man might get upset. That’s when I turned on my psychic powers.”
Randy tries to sound amused by what he said, superior to his childish behavior. “Your what?”
“You mean you never heard of mental telepathy? I use it to get women to come to me all the time.”
Randy folds her arms across her chest and repeats his words with derision: “Mental telepathy.”
Randy laughs, trying to sound unaffected and indifferent. “I certainly didn’t come because you called me.”
“No, I told you, I just saw a flash of light that looked out of place.”
“Well, Randy, the point is, I wanted you to come, I sent you a signal, and you’re here.” Dave puts his arm around Randy’s shoulders again and slips his hand beneath her kimono. “Hey, if you take this thing off you’ll feel cooler.”
“But you don’t want me to cool off, do you?”
# # #
Randy has never in her life felt shame for any action or thought. The consequences of everything she has done have been clearly and coldly calculated beforehand so that the actual doing was more like watching a play she’d already read or seeing a summer television repeat. Last night was different only in that she’d done her calculations in about ten seconds. So lying in her bed, unable to see the mast of Bob’s boat or the flying bridge of Dave’s because of the morning fog, Randy refuses to feel the guilt she knows other women feel after adultery. Bob had left her unsatisfied; it was his fault she couldn’t sleep.
When Dave touched her the second time, she had been feeling aroused enough to let the kimono drop to the deck. The idea of sex with a man she didnít like, and on the flying bridge of his boat where her husband and a hundred neighbors could see them if it were daylight—it was too thrilling to resist. She quickly figured out two things about Dave: he was used to having his way with women, and he’d never before had a woman as good as Randy. She also knows she could train him to be a good lover if she ever wants one, but she doubts that she will. When he comes to install the new floors, she’ll just be sure Judy’s there, too.
At ten oíclock Bob knocks and enters with their morning coffee on a silver tray. He expresses sympathy for the disappointment Randy must be feeling.
“But I know you didn’t trust me with the boat, Bob, so I bet you’re secretly relieved.” When his face forms a denial, she tosses the pink satin sheet aside and says, “Let’s find something else to do now, shall we? Then you can help me shop for new cabinets this afternoon.”
